quote:

---

On April 28, 2008, we mark the 24th anniversary of the National Day of Mourning for workers killed and injured on the job. The National Day of Mourning is an initiative of the Canadian Labour Congress and was started in 1984. It is now celebrated around the world from Azerbaijan to Zambia.

Unfortunately, workplace fatalities continue to grow in Canada. In fact, Canada continues to have one of the highest workplace fatality rates of any OECD country and it is simply unacceptable. In 2006, the Association of Worker's Compensation Boards of Canada (AWCBC) reported 976 workplace fatalities in Canada compared to 805 workplace fatalities in 1996 – an 18% increase in a ten-year period.

[snip]

Any workplace death or injury is preventable. Every year we keep repeating our call for better enforcement of existing legislation, but we do not see the action needed. Better enforcement may have saved thousands of lives lost to workplace accidents in the last ten years. Lives that were unnecessarily and unjustly taken would still be with their families, friends and colleagues.

This year’s slogan “Mourn for the Dead, Fight for the Living - Now more than ever” reminds us of what we must do in the hopes of not only preventing and reducing, but eliminating workplace deaths and injuries.

---

quote:

---

April 28 is the official Day of Mourning recognized by Parliament in memory of workers killed or injured on the job. Each year on this day, the Canadian Labour Congress holds a Memorial ceremony in Ottawa in observance of the workers killed or hurt at work.

April 28 is recognized by the labour movement across Canada as the day when we mourn victims of workplace accidents or disease and remember their sacrifice. It is also a time for the renewal of our pledge to rededicate ourselves to the goal of making our workplace safer. We must continue to urge governments to improve health and safety standards and workers compensation benefits in the workplace.

* There are around a million workplace injuries a year in Canada - a compensable injury occurs every seven seconds of each working day.
* Deaths from workplace injury average nearly a thousand a year. In Canada, one worker is killed every two hours of each working day.
* Deaths from workplace diseases go largely unrecorded and uncompensated; they likely exceed deaths from workplace injuries.
* Despite this, many governments are weakening health and safety rules and their enforcement.

---

Day of Mourning in Canada

Here is one story from the CLC link above ...

quote:

---

Until three years ago, the workplace was a place where, if you were an employer, you could kill or maim someone with virtual impunity. In 2005, a 23-year-old labourer named Steve L'Ecuyer was crushed to death by a machine at work. Unknown to him, a safety device intended to prevent such an accident had been deliberately disabled for more than a year by his employer, Transpavé Inc.

Until three years ago, it all would have ended with a fine for Transpavé Inc. and the fact that the owners and managers had knowingly caused a man's death would have been swept under the carpet as just another workplace accident. But this year, Transpavé was fined $110,000 for being found criminally negligent in the death of Steve L'Ecuyer. It was the first conviction since the Criminal Code was amended in 2004. It now holds employers responsible for health and safety offences that destroy workers' lives.

The court ruling was the result of a plea bargain arrangement that was cut with the company to secure a guilty plea. The CLC felt the court ruling was not only weak, but that it sent the wrong message to employers that they can still afford to put workers’ lives at risk without personal consequences. It is unfortunate that the Transpavé ruling does little justice to the Westray miners in whose names the law was changed. It certainly offers nothing close to justice for the friends and family of Steve L'Ecuyer.

The Canadian Labour Congress and unions (especially the United Steelworkers), in response to the 1992 Westray mine disaster in Nova Scotia where 26 men were killed as a direct result of employer negligence, fought long and hard to win amendments to the Criminal Code. Not a single criminal conviction resulted until the conviction of Transpavé.

---

[ 28 April 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

quote:

---

from Wikipedia: One worker dies every 15 seconds worldwide. 6,000 workers die every day. Work kills more people than wars.

---

quote:

---

Key Statistics

Each day, an average of 6,000 people die as a
result of work-related accidents or diseases, totalling
more than 2.2 million work-related deaths a year. Of
these, about 350,000 deaths are from workplace
accidents and more than 1.7 million are from workrelated
diseases. In addition, commuting accidents
increase the burden with another 158,000 fatal
accidents.

Each year, workers suffer approximately 270
million occupational accidents that lead to absences
from work for 3 days or more, and fall victim to
some 160 million incidents of work-related disease.

Approximately 4% of the world’s gross domestic
product is lost with the cost of injury, death and
disease through absence from work, sickness
treatment, disability and survivor benefits.

Hazardous substances kill about 438,000 workers
annually, and 10% of all skin cancers are estimated
to be attributable to workplace exposure to hazardous
substances.

Asbestos alone claims about 100,000 deaths
every year and the figure is rising annually.
Although global production of asbestos has fallen
since the 1970s, increasing numbers of workers
in the USA, Canada, UK, Germany and other
industrialized countries are now dying from past
exposure to asbestos dust.

Silicosis – a fatal lung disease caused by exposure
to silica dust – still affects tens of millions of workers
around the world. In Latin America, 37% of miners
have some degree of the disease, rising to 50%
among miners aged over 50. In India, over 50% of
slate pencil workers and 36% of stonecutters have
silicosis.

---

quote:

---

ILO: Work kills more people than wars – some 6,000 a day. And almost 270 million accidents are recorded each year, of which 350,000 are fatal. Many of these could be prevented, the International Labour Office believes. 20 years after one of the worst industrial accidents on record – the Bhopal disaster, which killed 2,500 people and injured 200,000 in the space of a few hours, later some 20 000 have died – the situation has scarcely improved.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by M. Spector:
So there's nothing particularly brave about taking a career in the Canadian Forces.

In fact, it's a safer than average job.

---

In the interests of intellectual honesty, that's not necessarily true. The percentage of dead soldiers is probably higher than the percentage of dead workers.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jrootham:
In the interests of intellectual honesty, that's not necessarily true.

---

Moreover, it is far more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in our times of war.

quote:

---

[/qb] The percentage of dead soldiers is probably higher than the percentage of dead workers.[/qb]

---

Having said that, today the %'s are higher for workers on the job, and women at the hands of men, are dying in greater nymbers, here in Canada, than for military personal, in Afghanistan.

quote:

---

This is not to say that fighting for workspace safety is wrong, in fact, it is to say erroneous arguments hurt that fight.

---

Well, seeing as how it is not an erroneous argument nothing has been hurt eh?

quote:

---

Originally posted by remind:

In the interests of intellectual honesty, it's true, more workers die per year than who are killed by being a soldier, the above link is not the first time this has been stated and proven here.

---

That's not the statement I was referring to. I quoted the statement "In fact, it's a safer than average job." This statement claims that the probability of death is lower for soldiers than all workers. This might well be true, but the fact that the total number of deaths for workers is higher than deaths from wars is not adequate evidence for the claim.

quote:

---

Having said that, today the %'s are higher for workers on the job, and women at the hands of men, are dying in greater nymbers, here in Canada, than for military personal, in Afghanistan.

---

I can't quite parse this sentence. Are you saying that the percentage of workers who die at work is higher than the percentage of soldiers who die in Afghanistan? Or are you saying the total number of workers dying on the job is higher than the total number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan?

I just looked things up. Soldiers: 82 dead over 6 years out of 87,000 (regulars + reserves). 15.7 per 100,000 per year.

Canada overall is just under 7 per 100,000 per year.

And that is only Afghan combat deaths, no training accidents.

Right now it's not safer to be a soldier.

quote:

---

The Flag on the Peace Tower in Ottawa and on all Government of Canada buildings and establishments across Canada will be flown at half mast from sunrise to sunset Wednesday, April 28, 2004, to mark this Day of Mourning for Persons Killed or Injured in the Workplace.

---

I think it is now a permanent tradition.